Dr. Jennifer J. Freyd, Professor
of Psychology at the University of Oregon and a Fellow at the Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University coined the
term in 1997 and in 2019 published a paper entitled “What is DARVO?” Freyd
defines DARVO as “…a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing…may display in
response to being held accountable for their behavior… The perpetrator or
offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the
confronting, and Reverse the roles
of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and
turns the true victim…into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when
an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of ‘falsely accused’ and
attacks the accuser's credibility and blames the accuser of being the
perpetrator of a false accusation.”[1]
It is no accident that a
narcissistic parent uses this tactic. In 2017 Freyd participated in a peer-reviewed
research study that reported that, ‘…DARVO was commonly used by individuals who
were confronted…and higher levels of exposure to DARVO during a confrontation
were associated with increased perceptions of self-blame among the confronters.
These results provide evidence for the existence of DARVO as a perpetrator
strategy and establish a relationship between DARVO exposure and feelings of
self-blame. Exploring DARVO aids in understanding how perpetrators are able to
enforce victims’ silence through the mechanism of self-blame.’[2]
Broken down into plain English,
this means that DARVO is a common ploy used by those who hurt us, a ploy used
to throw blame onto us rather accept responsibility for the results of their
actions. It also means that it works best on people who have been conditioned
to feel responsible for things they aren’t really responsible for, people who
suffer from toxic guilt, like many of us.
Interestingly, Freyd and a
colleague, Sarah Harsey, in a new project (which is still under review) have
discovered that the DARVO phenomenon goes further than just between the
offender and victim. When they told the study participants stories of abuse and
followed the story with a DARVO response, they found the participants less
willing to believe the victim than people who told the same story but not given
a DARVO response: the DARVO strategy actually works to discredit victims! Even
more interesting, however, is that another study group was first educated about
DARVO and when they were told a victim’s story followed by a DARVO response,
the study participants found the victim more credible than the study
participants who had not been previously educated about DARVO.[3]
Education about DARVO, then, it
important: it clues in the bystanders, be they flying monkeys or members of the
justice system, to the ploy beforehand. For us, that means learning what DARVO
is and educating ourselves as well as the people in our lives who are likely to
hear DARVO responses from our narcissists.
Freyd’s paper does not mention the
word “narcissist” but does specifically note that the DARVO response is a
common tactic among sex offenders. The children of narcissists, however, will
recognize the almost knee-jerk response of the narcissist to even the slightest
hint of wrongdoing. The fragile ego of a narcissist cannot stand being wrong
hence the narcissist’s rationalization and justification of everything she does.
Narcissists, believing themselves perfect and infallible, cannot accept an
accusation of wrongdoing—or even the possibility that she could do wrong—so she
must justify and/or rationalize her beliefs and behaviours to make them appear
right. One of the ways a narcissist does this is through DARVO: if something is
the fault of someone else, then the narcissist is without responsibility.
Deny
Attack
The
old adage “the best defence is a good offence” is at the core of a DARVO attack
and it is not uncommon for the attack to have a third party involved[5].
Narcissists will attempt to impress an observer of their innocence, especially
an observer who the narcissist holds in high esteem or someone who has more
power than the narcissist, like the police or a judge or a boss. An effective
DARVO attack can see the narcissist’s victim up on charges and facing jail
time, or professionally reprimanded. Or worse.
For
the narcissist to effectively take the role of victim, it is most effective to
name an alternative perpetrator. In a real-life case a male friend of mine met (in
a restaurant so that there were witnesses) with a women he had broken up with a
month earlier. From his descriptions of her, I guess her to be a narcissist and
the last six months of their relationship was marked by frequent rows about her
intransigent lying. She finally stepped over the line and he dumped her. But he
had lent her a considerable sum of money during their year together and he
wanted it back so he invited her to come to a busy coffee shop to discuss
repayment of those loans.
During
their meeting she continually shifted the subject from the money she owed to
her personal travails, ending each of her pity-party monologs with a plea of
poverty. He, well aware that she was trying to distract him from the subject of
repayment and elicit pity for her dire straits such that he would forgive the
loans, suggested she borrow the money from her current boyfriend. She responded
by throwing a drink in his face. After she had calmed down, however, and
thinking she was stranded three miles from home, he had the bad judgment to
offer her a ride home, which she accepted. While in the car he continued to try
to convince her to pay back the loans on her own, saving them the effort of
Small Claims Court. But shortly before they arrived at her residence, she lost
her temper again and physically attacked him. At the end of her tantrum he was
bleeding from two deep scratches: one on his neck, the other on his hand as he
shielded himself from her clawing at his face—she did succeed in shattering his
glasses. She then began destroying the interior of his car, screaming invective
and condemning men in general, ultimately ripping the rear view mirror from its
mount and throwing it at his head. But the mirror was still attached to the car
by its data cables and rather than impacting his head, it reached the end of
its tether, bounced back, and hit the windscreen and breaking it.
He,
of course, called the police and she admitted to the arresting office that she
broke his glasses and damaged the car. She was arrested on the spot and spent
two days in jail waiting for her bail hearing. After a few hours in jail she appealed
to my friend to drop the charges so she could be released from jail but he
refused unless she agreed to pay for the damages to his car and repay the
loans. She refused and she spent two days in jail before she was finally
granted bail and her freedom.
Reverse Victim and Offender
Imagine
my friend’s surprise when, the day after his ex made bail, he was called by the
police and told that a charge of rape had been lodged against him.
It
was DARVO. When he got to the police station they told him the charge was
actually sexual assault—or sexual harassment—they weren’t sure yet which. It
was immediately apparent to him that his ex-girlfriend, unable to justify his
wounds and the damage to his car any other way, had charged him with sexual
assault. According to her, she threw the drink in his face because she was
offended when he suggested she prostitute herself to get the money she owed him
(her interpretation of his suggestion that she borrow it). The police declined
to give specifics of the supposed sexual assault but, in mediation over the
charge a few months later, she refused to withdraw the charges against him
unless he forgave not only the loans he made to her, but the cost of repairs to
his car which, because it was a German luxury brand, were not going to be
cheap. She couldn’t say that the assault didn’t happen—he had the injuries (and
a security video from the restaurant) to prove it did. She couldn’t say the
damage to the car didn’t happen—the condition of the car and a hefty repair
estimate proved it did—and she admitted it to the arresting officer. So, she
reversed the victim and offender and made herself his victim, charging him with
essentially molesting her in the privacy of the car en route to her residence
and claiming that was the reason she injured him and damaged the car: she was
attempting to escape a sexual assault.
Her
accusations were so absurd that anyone who knew anything about DARVO would have
been instantly suspicious. He said “…borrow the money from someone just like
you borrowed it from me…”; she reported he said “…you can get the money by
sleeping with other guys…” She said, in writing, “He wouldn’t stop the car so I
broke the windscreen…and his spectacles.” Somehow the police found this reasonable
and credible enough to file charges against him, somehow the prosecution found
this reasonable and credible enough to set a trial date. And when he finally
was able to get a copy of her written accusation, he found out that her “sexual
assault” allegation consisted of “…he touched me on my thigh…”
Once
the senior prosecution staff was shown the allegation, the charges were
withdrawn, but not before untold damage was done to my friend, emotionally,
financially, and even professionally. And despite having the charges withdraw
by the prosecution as having no merit, she still tried to use the fact that he
was arrested for sexually assaulting her as her justification for injuring him
and damaging his car.
The victim of a narcissist may
find DARVO to be difficult to grasp. Certainly my friend was baffled when, in
the eyes of the police, he went from being the victim of an assault to the
perpetrator of one in the blink of an eye. The police sided with his attacker
because she was a woman recounting a sexual assault and nobody bothered to
subject her story to the same critical examination they gave his. Ultimately
the prosecution withdrew those charges, yes, but not until he had suffered, in
his words, “five months of hell” that ultimately put him on anti-anxiety meds. The
fact that he was the real victim did not stop the narcissistic ex from turning
the tables on him and having the police and courts dance her merry tune for
over five months until someone took a look at her accusations with fresh eyes—and
without her there to whisper blandishments in his ears—and saw what was really
going on.
Not all DARVO attacks are this
dramatic but they can be if the narcissist perceives it to be worth it to her. But
the fact is, narcissists use DARVO whenever it will suit their agenda. Being
narcissists, they don’t care if the accusations they make are true or not, and
they don’t care what kind of consequences you suffer, either…my friend’s ex
would be happy if she was just exonerated and not convicted of assault and
property damage—but if he went to jail for three years for sexual assault, she
wouldn’t feel the least remorse. Instead, as a narcissist, she would feel
vindicated and that he was getting just desserts for not giving her what she
wanted. Most likely, however, the narcissist in your life will use DARVO to
excuse a tantrum or a petty, spiteful action or to escape responsibility for
some misdeed. My mother denied every ugly, mean, destructive, and cruel thing
she ever did to me, telling me that even if my accusations of her maltreatment
were true, I was only getting what I deserved. And that included stealing my
children for her brother to adopt.
Just as that horrible woman
accused my friend of sexual assault to give herself a plausible reason for
assaulting him and destroying the interior of his car, with no care for the
consequences he might suffer, including the loss of his professional career and
his freedom, so do narcissists employ DARVO to exonerate themselves, with no
sense of responsibility for the consequences you might face if they are
believed. In fact, malicious malignant narcissists like my mother and my friend’s
ex- actually find a sense of triumph and personal satisfaction in your
suffering because they feel validated and that you are getting just payback for
the wrongs they perceive you have perpetrated against them by not giving them
what they wanted.
It’s called DARVO, it is effective,
and it is devastating to its victims. Spread the awareness—and be prepared.
1. Freyd,
J.J. (2019). What is DARVO? Retrieved April 20, 2019 from http://pages.uoregon.edu/dynamic/jjf/defineDARVO.html
2.
Harsey, S., Zurbriggen,
E., & Freyd, J.J. (2017—published Open Access). Perpetrator
Responses to Victim Confrontation: DARVO and Victim Self-Blame. Journal
of Aggression, Maltreatment, & Trauma, 26,
644-663.
3.
Freyd, op. cit.
4. DARVO. Changingminds.org. Retrieved
April 21, 2019 from http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/darvo.htm.
5. Ibid.
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